Gaming! on computers!

[taimatsu]

 Why not post more things if I have things to post? This one can be public I guess? 

Compared to olwy I am a gamer. Compared to Real Gamers I am not really a gamer but who cares? I like playing computer games of various kinds. (I also like playing board games but that's another post.)

I have my phone nearby most of the time, so that's where I play a lot of games. I enjoy puzzle games - I recently played 'Isoland' 1 and 2 which were good, small, point-and-click find-things-and-solve-puzzles games. I had to resort to a walkthrough a couple of times where I'd just missed something or got the wrong end of the stick, but that says more about my tolerance for mild frustration than about the game, I think. 

Also on the phone I have been playing Eden Obscura, which is a tap-and-swipe swinging-around-an-abstract-floral-landscape thing. I like it a lot because while it has goals, it is also a very open kind of gameplay - you have a level, you have five goes in which to complete it, you can choose powerups before you start but you don't have to, and you have to find the goal location and fill it with 'pollen', but meanwhile you can choose your route and the way in which you get where you're going, and whether you complete the thing in a couple of goes or take all five and explore along the way. It also doesn't nag you to buy things - in fact, most of the time you can't buy anything at all, it just has a once-a-week powerup sale.

The thing I spend too much time on is 'Love Nikki Dress-up Queen' which sounds bananas and it is. It's a dressing up game, which is also a RPG. It's set in a world where all conflict is resolved by having a dressing-up contest. You collect clothes and complete challenges. It's not just one thing, the game contains quite a lot of different ways to interact and score different kinds of points and progress. The downside is that it's very, very tempting to spend money on it and some of the special events can't be completed unless you do so. The game originates in China, so the dressing-up clothes are very varied and much of the wardrobe is fantastical. It's problematic in a number of ways but it's still fun. I am slightly embarrassed to be telling you this but sod it, life's too short to be embarrassed about fun things. 

I have just started playing 'Alto's Odyssey' which is a side-scrolling sand-boarding game with lovely graphics. I am not very good at it yet, but it's enjoyable. 

I have a bunch of other games on my phone which see less action - June's Journey (hidden object/finding things), SailorDrops (sailor-moon-themed Match 3), Threes, Two Dots, Hidden Folks, a Sudoku game, Anodia (a brick breaker thing), Piyomori! (throw little sticky chicks at plates of food to form a pile, I kid you not, it's Japanese and amazingly silly), Alphabear, Moxie (a word game based on changing one letter at a time), a Solitaire game, a Mahjong matching game, and of course Frotz (an iOS interactive-fiction interpreter). On the web-on-the-phone I play Fallen London, which is a text-based choose-your-adventure thing with a 'dark and hilarious' sensibility. It's good. 

Off the phone I have done less gaming recently, but my big computer is back online so that may change soon. On PC I enjoy: Sunless Sea, which builds on the Fallen London setting and involves navigating a ship around the Unterzee (the underground ocean); Stardew Valley, which is a cute farming simulator (I cannot get the hang of the bit of the game involving chatting up villagers, but it's still enjoyable without that); and Lord of the Rings Online, which I haven't picked up for a while but which is a Tolkien-themed MMORPG.

On Olly's PS3 I really enjoy Dragon Age: Origins, which is a fantasy combat RPG thing for which I have an elf mage character (ranged combat all the way, I can't react fast enough to do melee properly). 

Gaming! Yay! 

Edited to add: my phone is an iPhone 5S - no guarantees any phone games mentioned are available for other platforms, though I'm confident most of them are. 

Comments

[softfruit]

100% with you on the ranged combat thing (I do mine in Star Wars: The Old Republic)

[taimatsu]

Cool! What system/console do you play that on?

[softfruit]

PC and it's an online big multiplayer, it's so much "world-of-warcraft with lightsabers" that I'm surprised WOW didn't sue, it even has the same keyboard layout for something like the 30 most common actions! It works on my laptop as well, albeit with the graphics at their lowest settings, which is good for sitting on a sofa next to Emma both gaming on our bits of tech.

I mostly play Sith: picture all those bits of the Emperor firing lightning at his victims while cackling.

[dancefloorlandmine]

I think you could definitely carry off the black robes. [grin] Purple light-sabre?

[softfruit]

[dancefloorlandmine]

[giggle]

[wildeabandon]

Ooh - I shall have to have a look at some of these. I end up playing a lot of rubbish games that are constantly trying to sell you things on my phone, so it's good to have recs for things that actually sound good :)

[taimatsu]

Some of the recent things I got were pay-up-front games which were on sale - Alto's Odyssey I just bought for 49p, and I've already had way more than 49p's worth of fun out of it! I like it that way because then they mostly don't nag you to buy more things, if they've already had some money. So do look at what's on sale in your app store for not-much-money, rather than just free things.

[wildeabandon]

Yes, I think I learned that lesson before and then managed to forget it. I think there's a part of me that doesn't want to buy phone games without having much idea of whether I'll like them, but it's a bit odd, because I've got dozens of games on my Steam library that I bought on a whim and haven't even opened...

But I've got myself a copy of Alto's Odyssey now and I am rather enjoying it.

[sfred]

I am not a gamer - because I can't be just a bit of a gamer - but the dressing up one sounds fun.

[taimatsu]

It's interesting - there's a story that goes along with the levels/challenges, which comes in chapters. The English version of the game is way behind the Chinese and some other versions, so we know there's loads more to come. The initial chapters are very fluffy and sweet, with the main character exploring a magical land full of random people challenging her to dressing up contests. Then at chapter 16 BOOM everything suddenly goes a bit pear-shaped and we find out WHY everyone is so invested in dressing-up contests and the stakes get much higher. It's a bit mind-bending. :)

[dancefloorlandmine]

That sounds interestingly dark.

(And a dressing-up game does seem very much you!)

[sfred]

That sounds really cool :)

[silveradept]

That sounds like you're a gamer to me. If someone wants to claim that only X counts as Real Games, they can take a long walk off a shirt pier into a pit of vipers. Casual games are games.

Anyway, it sounds like you're having fun.

[cryx]

You are for sure a gamer!!

I also have friends who are into love Nikki

[thekumquat]

Useful recommendations, thank you.